


wish upon a bottle

by lastseennever



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastseennever/pseuds/lastseennever
Summary: But now, alone at the bay of the little town they’d stopped in for the weekend, she found her breaths giving out. Clenching her fists uselessly through the water, she raised her head to rest her gaze on a small bottle, drifting away from the shore.Months after the end of the killing game, Maki stands at the shore and makes a wish.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	wish upon a bottle

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based off of mothy's [Regret Message]. English translations are taken from Lizz Robinett's cover.

The tide was rising. Sinking rays shimmered on the water’s surface. Maki closed her eyes, letting the sunlight reflect the droplets just barely clinging to her eyelashes.

She hadn’t cried in a while.

There had been no time to cry, no time to mourn, not after the three of them had climbed out of the spherical set that had been the backdrop of their killing game. For the past couple months, they had always been on the move. Village to village, city to city, pushing their agenda to end Danganronpa once and for all. No one else would ever have to go through what they did; no more lives would ever be lost to the insatiable cruelness of humanity.

Last week, the Danganronpa PR team had made an official announcement. Season 54 had been cancelled due to backlash, the project abandoned. There were no plans for a reboot.

They should have been happy. They had achieved their goal, finally. Instead, Maki had found herself curled up on the hotel mattress at three in the morning rubbing circles into Shuichi’s back as he sobbed into his hands. The tears had stained the sheets, and she had pretended not to hear his cries for a certain pianist through his gasps. Himiko had retreated to the bathroom. Even after everything that had happened, or perhaps because of it, sometimes the mage was still uncomfortable with showing her emotions in front of others. This was one of those times. The walls were thin though, and Himiko’s quiet words easily drifted through the gaps of the door.

“Tenk—" a voice catching on grief, "—she—she should’ve survived with all of us… why didn’t she survive? Why did none of them make it? They should be here with us—”

Later, Maki had helped put Himiko to bed, gently moving her from the bathroom floor on which she had collapsed. Staring down at her tiny form, cheeks and floor stained with sorrow, face contorted in anguish even while half-asleep, Maki had nearly given in; tears had almost dragged their way out of her heart, almost fallen on calloused hands, but she had managed to stomp them down, dredging up every remnant of the cold, ruthless, unfeeling Maki Harukawa she had been less than a year prior in order to prevent their descent. She couldn't cry then, not when the wailing of three voices might resonate and amplify and drive them all to recklessness. But now, alone at the bay of the little town they’d stopped in for the weekend, she found her breaths giving out. Clenching her fists uselessly through the water, she raised her head to rest her gaze on a small bottle, drifting away from the shore.

-

_“Hey... Harumaki.”_

_“Don’t call me that,” she grumbled instinctively. “What do you want?”_

_Kaito was unfazed by her chilliness. Of course he was, that idiot._

_“Have you ever heard about wishing with a bottle?”_

_Looking to her side, Maki saw Kaito raise a hand to the sky. They should be heading back now. Shuichi had already left, and it was getting late._

_Well, it’s not like they were in a rush to go anywhere. She tilted her head curiously. “Wishing with a bottle? What do you mean?”_

_“Some say that if you write a wish on paper and place it in a glass bottle,”_

_He turned to face her then, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from that radiant smile._

_“And it’s washed away by the ocean,”_

_That smile that had twisted its way into her chest and sunken its claws into her heart with sharpened talons—_

_“Then someday, that wish might come true.”_

_Maki averted her gaze. “That sounds stupid.” Kaito laughed._

_“Aw, don't say that, Harumaki. I don’t really believe in superstition and all that, but y'know, it's a pretty neat idea.”_

_Maki hadn’t believed in wishes then, but she’d still shaken her head at him and thought yeah, she supposed it was a decent sentiment, and maybe she had secretly looked up at the stars and cast a single wish into the skies._

_A couple days later, staring at the blood seeping through the cracks in the spaceship, she realized that wishes were exactly that—wishes._

_They could save no one._

_-_

Maki would’ve laughed at the irony of it all if she thought she could open her mouth right now without doing something stupid like screaming to the seas about how unfair everything was. The haze of her mind settled on a recent memory, and she found her thoughts echoing those spoken brokenly by a girl behind a door.

He should be there with them. With her.

Why did he have to go and get himself killed? Why did she have to go and kill—

She had killed him. If she hadn’t been so impulsive, hadn’t been so stupid, they might’ve gotten out in time. If Ouma’s plan had ended up working, or if they’d somehow exposed the truth just a little earlier, they could’ve gotten him out in time for treatment, for him to stay with them, for him to stay alive—

But she knows that he wouldn’t have lived. He wasn’t meant to live, not in this world. Not in this cruel, cruel world, that wrenched away the lives of those who deserved to live more than anyone else, that stole away the dreams and laughs and smiles of the kindest person she has, had, will ever know.

Wishes were useless. Worse than useless. They gave false solace to desperate voices and crushed beneath their heels the brittle bones of the dead. And yet—

She couldn’t help but hope.

The bottle headed swiftly toward the horizon, until it was but a speck in her blurred vision.

She raised her hands to her face then, letting her tears seep through her fingers and wash away into the ocean. Screaming a voiceless scream, she sank down to her knees into the shallow waves. For a moment, she wished that they would rage and swallow her under. But he wouldn’t want that. And so she would live. In a couple minutes, she would rise. She would make her way back to the hotel where Shuichi and Himiko were waiting, and she would brush off the looks they’d give her when they saw her soaked clothes. They’d set off the next day, to another place, running, running, again and forever.

But right now, she let herself wilt. Her heart was still, small, and she clutched desperately at the wish she’d made, the last wish she would ever make, written hurriedly on a take-out receipt and stuffed inside an old beer bottle taken from the side of the road. She would cling onto this wish for the rest of her life, allowing herself this one irrationality, yearning for a different time, a different place, a different world where it could be fulfilled—

-

_If we're to be reborn someday, I’d like to be your sidekick again._

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to some covers yesterday when Lizz's cover of Regret Message came on and my mind instantly jumped to Maki. Most of the fandom doesn't like to focus on "canon" post-game material, mostly because it's so goddamn depressing, and I usually don't either. But I just had to get this idea down somewhere, so here it is, I guess. There's probably a lot of silly mistakes because it's hard to proofread through your tears, and I might try to write a neater, more fluid version in the future. But for now, thanks for reading!
> 
> Link to the cover, if you wanna cry like me: https://youtu.be/NFiyx61NVOM


End file.
